One of the few luxuries I have been able to enjoy in this country is constant electricity. I know it sounds crazier than your cousin having a bubble bath right in the middle of Sahara Desert.

So where do I live? In some random part of Lagos! I live in a little enclave that happens to have a very bad electricity problem. Apart from the madness induced electricity given by the local utility, the estate itself has perennial problem of poor utility management that ensures that darkness is a constant factor.

But I’m in one of the rapidly expanding Nigerian club that discovered energy storage, popularly called inverters. I bet someone around you has it and it’s getting so popular that I expect it to supplant “I better pass my neighbor” soon. For a few friends that I have gotten on this bus, their greatest regret has always been getting inverters too late. Inverter has gone from nerdish to mainstream.

However, there is a catch, you still need to have some bits of electricity from the utilities or your generator to have this going. It doesn’t eliminate most of your cost or sometimes of your inconveniences but boy, it does a good job of hypertension alleviation!

What if I could invest some cash into solar panels and pair that with my inverter, could it be possible that I could snip of my wires?

The cost of solar panels is rapidly going down although the Naira exchange rate is making a mess of everything. But let’s say solar gets to a decent price point, going independent might be worth it. The biggest cost savings wouldn’t come from utilities bill but from cost of buying, fueling and maintaining generators. Lord have mercy!